BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes is once again at the center of criticism after on-chain analysts noticed that his fund Maelstrom sold CARDS tokens worth about $1.92 million just a few days after Hayes publicly endorsed the project.
In the crypto community, this kind of scheme is called using investors as ‘exit liquidity,’ when public statements help boost interest in an asset before a personal sale.
This is already the second such case in the past month. About three weeks ago, blockchain researcher ZachXBT accused Hayes of similar actions with four other tokens at once.
Why Arthur Hayes Is Being Criticized Again
On June 23, Hayes wrote on X that the degens of CARDS have a strong idea, and in his opinion, the token should start rising in price. Around the same time, the official account of the Maelstrom fund also published a link to the project.
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Four days later, crypto analytics account SolanaFloor reported that Hayes had previously set a target for CARDS at $4, although at that time the token was trading at about $0.30. The next day, according to analysts, Maelstrom transferred CARDS tokens worth about $1.92 million to market maker Flowdesk. The publication noted that the transfer was most likely related to a sale.
This was enough for a new wave of criticism against Arthur Hayes to start on Crypto Twitter.
At the time of the SolanaFloor publication, the token was already trading at about $0.23, which is about 23% lower than the level at which Hayes publicly supported the project. Currently, CARDS is trading around $0.24.
Another on-chain analyst known as Ericonomic also drew attention to this sequence of events. According to him, Hayes actively promoted CARDS four days ago, and three days later, an address linked to him completely got rid of its tokens through Fireblocks.
At the same time, Ericonomic noted that Hayes never publicly disclosed this wallet address. The connection was established based on the timing of transactions and the nature of the token movements.
What Exactly ZachXBT Accused Hayes Of
On June 6, blockchain researcher ZachXBT accused Arthur Hayes of a similar scheme. This time, it involved four tokens at once: HYPE, NEAR, ZEC and WLD.
According to ZachXBT, Hayes publicly supported each of these assets and then completely exited all four positions within two weeks.
On May 22, Hayes called HYPE, ZEC and NEAR the ‘Holy Trinity.’ However, by June 4, he had sold all his HYPE and NEAR, and on June 5, got rid of ZEC, citing a discovered exploit in Orchard Pool.
The next day, Hayes also closed his position in WLD. This happened less than a day after he presented Worldcoin as a potential bet on a possible SpaceX IPO.
After that, ZachXBT directly asked Hayes how much ‘exit liquidity’ his own followers provided him.
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In response, Hayes said that he simply sold the asset to someone who was willing to buy it at that price, and added that this time he managed to choose the right moment to achieve his trading goals.
The History of ZachXBT’s Investigations
ZachXBT has repeatedly drawn attention to similar schemes in the crypto industry, where well-known market participants first publicly promote a token and then sell their assets amid increased interest.
In the past two months, he has released several investigations dedicated to the tokens RAVE, SIREN and LAB. In all cases, it was about insiders or public figures potentially fueling retail investor interest and then taking profits at their expense.
In an investigation published on May 14 and dedicated to the LAB token, ZachXBT stated that insiders allegedly controlled more than 95% of the total token supply, even though the fully diluted project valuation exceeded $6 billion.
According to him, this situation is a clear example of what is wrong with today’s market, where large centralized exchanges are increasingly becoming a platform for extracting profits at the expense of retail investors.
At the time of publication, Arthur Hayes had not publicly commented on the new allegations related to CARDS. In addition, there is still no independent confirmation of the connection between the Maelstrom fund’s wallet and the transfers to Flowdesk . For now, these conclusions are based only on data published by SolanaFloor and other on-chain analysts.
